22 June 2004
Ed Cardoni
Letter to Mary Kunz and the Buffalo News: "...you never did get it..."
What's behind the recent Buffalo News snipings against University at Buffalo? It began with a flaky column by Donn Esmonde accusing former UB-president William Greiner of offenses against the public welfare which Esmonde and the News had to have known were completely untrue ("Waiting for UB on Main Street," 7 June 2004). News editorial page editor Jerry Goldberg refused to publish a response from us correcting Esmonde's errors of fact. He told a caller that the response was just a "diatribe," which it wasn't—it was simply a description of how off-the-wall and far from the truth Esmonde's column was. (The response that Goldberg said was unfit for publication is on Buffalo Report, so you can make up your own mind: "Donn Esmonde: city planner (not) 8 June 2004). Then on June 16 Goldberg published a letter that was even more misinformed than Esmonde's column had been. The writer said that back in the 1960s there had never been any intention to move most of UB to Amherst, so the University was, by recent choice, screwing the city. That's just made-up foolishness; it's totally untrue, which the editorial board of the Buffalo News knows perfectly well. When William Greiner called Goldberg to ask why he'd published a letter he had to have known was untrue Goldberg told him, "Well, you can write a letter arguing it." But the Letters column in a newspaper should be for statements or arguments about issues that matter, not for lies and corrections of lies the editorial page editors knew shouldn't have published in the first place. Goldberg wouldn't have dared to have played that fast and loose with the truth if News owner Warren Buffet hadn't suffocated the Buffalo Courier-Express years ago, making Buffalo a one-newspaper town. Then on June 22 the News published a column by Mary Kunz saying that if UB artist Steve Kuntz didn't want to get arrested by the FBI he should have stuck to painting innocuous subjects with oils as good boys should. That was too much for Hallwalls director Ed Cardoni, who penned the following response. Given Jerry Goldberg's disinclination to publish anything having to do with disinformation or misinformation in the Buffalo News, we present Cardoni's letter in its entirety here, followed by Mary Kunz' June 22 column and the factually untrue letter Goldberg chose to publish in the News's letters column on June 16. B.J.
Dear Mary Kunz,
Just as you never did get it about public funding of the arts (and you a musician and music lover, not to mention critic whose own livelihood depends upon the existence of publicly funded orchestras, ensembles, composers, and instrumentalists, both classical and jazz), you are (not untypically of you) SO wrong and SO misinformed about the Steve Kurtz case, and its artistic and political significance, that I don't know where to begin.
For starters, you are misinformed about contemporary visual art, which over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries (let alone the 21st) advanced quite a ways beyond "oils." (To acrylics, for one thing, to mention only painting, let alone film, photography, video, digital, and web). You have no business writing about contemporary art for print, and I don't know why the NEWS gives you so much space and so much ink to write about so many things you know so little about. (A good rule of thumb might be that journalists shouldn't write about things they are less well informed about than their readers, but far be it from me to suggest any limitation on the freedom of the press for those who own brand-new, multimillion dollar ones with the capacity to print your vapidly grinning visage in color every Tuesday.)
But let me limit myself to just one, non-aesthetic point:
You say: "The professor must know darn well that authorities are on the lookout for exactly the kind of stuff he possessed?"
No, Mary, I'm afraid that what the Ashcroft Justice Department is on the lookout for, besides scary Muslims, of course, are scary ideological enemies of the intellectual variety, including artists and university professors like Steve Kurtz with critical, dissident, radical, even subversive ideas. Please read this column in today's NY TIMES by a serious columnist you'd do well to emulate: Noonday in the Shade by Paul Krugman,"John Ashcroft seems to be neglecting real terrorist threats to the public because of his ideological biases."
Ahah! NOW the baffling, dogged investigation of Steve Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble starts making sense (if the term "sense" is applicable to Ashcroft's twisted mind). Artist or not, for the FBI Kurtz falls into the category of "eco-extremist threat," which is why the FBI is pushing this investigation when THEY should have dropped it by now. (By the way, as a journalist, THIS should bother you, not what you chose in today's column to be bothered about.)
You say: "It's irresponsible to create the illusion of a threat. It takes the FBI's attention away from more serious business."
No, Mary, the FBI has turned its own attention, uninvited, to this pointless, wasteful persecution of Steve Kurtz and his colleagues, when the FBI should be paying more attention to genuine domestic terrorists like William Krar. But evidently Ashcroft considers Kurtz's ideas as published in the writings of the CAE more threatening than Krar's actual arsenal. And we already knew Ashcroft is more concerned about protecting the Second Amendment rights of whackos like Krar ("the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed") than the First Amendment rights of artists, intellectuals, and journalists like you ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, " unless Mary Kunz opines that "now is not a good time").
You say: "We enjoy demonstrations a bit too much and too indiscriminately. Fame can be addicting. And, unfortunately, someone loses his place in the spotlight if he backs down."
DO we enjoy demonstrations too much, Mary? I wish we did, but I don't think so. I think there's far too much apathy. I think MORE people should be taking to the streets and speaking out more often and around more issues. I think what little dissent there is these days is pathetic. And you'd like to see and hear even LESS?
(I do agree with you that "fame can be addicting," as evidenced by the case of a certain twice-weekly published BUFFALO NEWS columnist whose undeserved over-exposure seems to have gone to her head.)
Kurtz did not seek this limelight, nor the continued attention of FBI agents who ransacked his home and personal belongings, even down to his dead wife's body, his cat, his students' term papers (including one by one UB student who has since been subpoenaed herself and flown at taxpayers' expense from her summer residence in Alaska to Buffalo for questioning by a federal grand jury), his personal library, his computers, his passport, his private correspondence, and anything else they wanted to take, all in the name of a Patriot Act run amok and in flagrant violation of yet another Amendment (4th): "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
At risk of ending this on a playground note, Mary, you think Professor Steve Kurtz, or a woman willing to go to jail for her right to feed deer, or a guy who's standing up for his privacy, should "sit down and shut up." Well, Mary, I'd like to say I think YOU should "sit down and shut up," at least about this, at least until you do some homework and stop writing from the seat of your pants on anything that pops into your head. But I won't say "sit down and shut up," Mary, because unlike you, I believe in the First Amendment and its protection of press freedom, even when ill-informed, infuriating, clear-bagged garbage like your column today makes it into print.
Sincerely,
Ed Cardoni
Executive Director
Hallwalls
Mary Kunz, "Much ado about deer, garbage, art," Buffalo News, 22 June 2004:
Forget regionalism. Forget whether to merge the city and county parks. Forget the war.We have other things to think about.
Such as what's-her-name, the Cheektowaga woman who insists on feeding the deer, illegally, in Stiglmeier Park, and is ready to go to jail for it.
And that Hamburg guy who won't, just won't, put his garbage in those clear trash bags as his elected officials demand. He insists on the opaque bags - even if they sit on the curb.
Let's not mention these people's names. They've been mentioned too much already. But their much-publicized stories beg one obvious question:
What in the world does that Hamburg guy have in his Hefty bags that he doesn't want us to see?
OK, that's not the big question (though, be honest - everyone has been wondering if he has Ho-Ho wrappers in there, or old Journey albums, or what). The most important question is: Don't people like this have somewhere they have to be?
When I was a kid and would complain about trivial stuff, my dad would intone: "Sit down and shut up."That's exactly what these petty protesters should do.
Sure, people have a right to say what they please. And some things, like capital punishment, abortion, the environment and a downtown casino, are important issues.
But others are not. And the deer lady and the garbage guy, though tremendously entertaining, are enjoying 15 minutes of fame that's bigger than what they stand for.
That happens a lot. Everyone loves a battle, even over something small. Petty warriors are seen as heroes, as David battling the mighty Goliath. It's fun to throw our weight behind them, to share in their glory.
Still, not all protests are created equal. Sometimes, they're not worth our time and energy. Occasionally, they're damaging.
New in the limelight is the University at Buffalo art professor whose Allentown house was raided by the FBI because it was filled with test tubes, the E. coli virus, etc. The professor says these sinister materials were part of his art.Supporters, demonstrating worldwide, proclaim he's telling the truth.
Let's assume that he is. Does that make everything OK?
It might be possible to use terrorism books and E. coli in art - but do you really have to? Can't you just use oils? Especially now that we're at war, and our enemies are scheming to make us sick or blow us up, and the professor must know darn well that authorities are on the lookout for exactly the kind of stuff he possessed?
I'm not calling for an end to artistic freedom. I'm just saying, like a stressed mom to a naughty tot, that now is not a good time.
A professor should set a good example. It's irresponsible to create the illusion of a threat. It takes the FBI's attention away from more serious business. And who wants a biohazard framed over our davenport anyway?
The right to protest is basic to America. But we should choose our battles more wisely.We enjoy demonstrations a bit too much and too indiscriminately. Fame can be addicting. And, unfortunately, someone loses his place in the spotlight if he backs down - or if he sits down and shuts up.
With which, I'll set a good example and sit down and shut up myself. After all, as the saying goes, people who live in clear bags shouldn't throw garbage. Well, something like that.
What is in that Hamburg guy's trash, anyway?
The totally erroneous letter that Buffalo News editorial page editor Gerry Goldberg published anyway:
UB should be investing in University Heights area
6/16/2004Amherst and Buffalo will suffer if 3,000 beds, retail shops, movies and a bowling alley are built on the University at Buffalo's North Campus.
Former president William Greiner caused UB to invest in expansion on the North Campus at the expense of the South Campus. If the project is built, the exodus to the North Campus of students who live in University Heights will cause the demise of the Main Street commercial area.The result will be empty storefronts, apartments without tenants and a sharp drop in property values. The destabilization of this area will undoubtedly cause destabilization of the bordering Amherst neighborhoods.
Greiner justifies this disinvestment by noting that the die was cast 40 years ago when the North Campus was created. But the creation of the North Campus was intended as an expansion. No state, local or university official stated that the creation of the North Campus was intended to diminish the South Campus. Ongoing policy decisions are responsible for its diminution.
The Princeton Review reports that UB students felt isolated on the North Campus. Instead of further institutionalizing this isolation by creating a city on campus, UB should provide enhanced transportation to University Heights, downtown and Elmwood Avenue.
Michael E. Ferdman, Former President of Forever Elmwood, Buffalo
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.